Autoregulation of ToxR and Its Regulatory Actions on Major Virulence Gene Loci in

Overview

Journal Front Cell Infect Microbiol

Specialties Cell Biology
Infectious Diseases
Microbiology

Date 2018 Sep 21

PMID 30234024

Citations 20

Authors

Yiquan Zhang

Lingfei Hu

George Osei-Adjei

Ying Zhang

Wenhui Yang

Zhe Yin

Renyun Lu

Xiumei Sheng

Ruifu Yang

Xinxiang Huang

Dongsheng Zhou

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

, the leading causative agent of seafood-associated gastroenteritis, harbors two major virulence gene loci T3SS1 and Vp-PAI (T3SS2 and ). ToxR is a virulence regulator of vibrios. Cell density-dependent transcriptional pattern of and its regulatory actions on T3SS1 and Vp-PAI have been previously reported, but the detailed regulatory mechanisms are still obscure. In the present work, we showed that the highest transcription level of occurs at an OD = 0.2-0.4, which may be due to the subtle repression of ToxR and the quorum-sensing (QS) master regulator AphA. We also showed that ToxR is involved in regulating the mouse lethality, enterotoxicity, cytotoxicity, and hemolytic activity of . ToxR binds to the multiple promoter-proximal DNA regions within the T3SS1 locus to repress their transcription. In addition, ToxR occupies the multiple promoter-proximal DNA regions of Vp-PAI locus to activate their transcription. Thus, ToxR regulates the multiple virulence phenotypes via directly acting on the T3SS1 and Vp-PAI genes. Data presented here provide a deeper understanding of the regulatory patterns of ToxR in .

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